Anniversary Greetings

by
Thomas A. Droleskey

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who has been hailed by many traditionally-minded Catholics ever since the issuance of Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, continues to advance the conciliar revolution against the Catholic Faith that he helped to engineer at its outset and whose "correct" vision and purpose he is intent on institutionalizing before he dies.

Ratzinger/Benedict's first two encyclical letters, Deus Caritas Est, January 25, 2006, and Spe Salvi, November 30, 2007, have been exercises in furthering the false concepts of the Faith held by the "new theology" that was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, and by which he seeks to replace what he considers to be Scholasticism's "corruption" of the Faith with a "purer" vision that is closer to that held by the Orthodox and by some Protestants. The whole purpose of the recently concluded "Pauline Year" was to
coerce perjury out of the Apostle to the Gentiles so as to make him a "witness" in behalf of conciliarism. The recently begun "Year for Priests" will involve an effort, perhaps very subtle at times, to redefine the Holy Priesthood and to make the likes of Saint John Mary Vianney and Padre Pio a witnesses for a conciliar "vision" of priestly ministry. Everything that Ratzinger/Benedict does is aimed at advancing the conciliar revolution.

Let us keep these basic facts, listed in
Keep Focused on Root Causes on May 15, 2009, in mind about a progenitor of and apologist for conciliarism:

First, Ratzinger/Benedict denies the nature of dogmatic truth, cleaving to philosophically absurd notion that dogmatic truth can never be expressed adequately at any one point in time, that each expression of dogma is necessarily "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which it was pronounced. Condemned by the [First] Vatican Council, Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and The Oath Against Modernism, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.

Ratzinger/Benedict has coined a phrase, the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" to refer his view of dogmatic truth that is at the foundation of his view of the Faith. To put matters bluntly and simply, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe in God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through the Catholic Church. His concept of God and His Revelation is but a projection of the condemned precepts of his "New Theology" onto God, a projection that manifests the sort of contempt that Pope Saint Pius X wrote in Pascendi that Modernists have for dogmatic truth, a projection that makes a mockery of the workings of God the Holy Ghost, Who cannot contradict Himself or make the teaching of Our Lord obscure or ambiguous, in the Church at dogmatic councils and in the papal encyclical letters of true popes prior to the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958. See Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism for a detailed contrast between Ratzinger's beliefs and the teaching of the Catholic Church on this crucial, foundational apostasy of his.

A concrete manifestation of this contempt for "past" pronouncements that Ratzinger/Benedict rejects can be found in his action as the head of the conciliar "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" in 2001 when he "overturned" condemnations of forty propositions of the late Father Antonio Rosmini that had been approved by Pope Leo XIII, meaning that Pope Leo acted erroneously on a matter touching the Faith. True popes cannot err on matters of Faith and Morals. This is impossible. (See Beatifying Their Own for a review of the Rosmini case.)

Third, Ratzinger/Benedict specifically, rejects the "ecumenism of the return," thereby making a mockery of the exhortations of one true pope after another for such a return of non-Catholics to the true Church.

Ratzinger/Benedict has refused to seek the conversion of the Jews, making a mockery of the words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that He spoke to the Eleven on Ascension Thursday and mocking the work of the first, Pope, Saint Peter, who specifically sought to convert his fellow Jews to the true Faith in his first papal discourse, delivered in Jerusalem on the first Pentecost Sunday after the descent of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, upon the Apostles and our dear Blessed Mother in the same Upper Room in Jerusalem where Our Lord had instituted the Holy Priesthood and the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper fifty-three days before.

Here is just comparison between Ratzinger/Benedict's rejection of the "ecumenism of the return" and the exhortation of Pope Pius IX, contained in Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868:

Benedict XVI: "We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

"On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

The Catholic Church: "It is for this reason that so many who do not share 'the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church' must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

"It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd." (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.)

Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that The Ravenna Document, a statement issued by representatives of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and various Orthodox churches, can re-define the nature of Papal Primacy, or at least the exercise thereof, in a manner in defiance of the decrees of the [First] Vatican Council and the solid history of the first millennium of the Church provided by Pope Leo XIII in Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894.

Ratzinger/Benedict has gone into two synagogues and has been treated as an inferior by his Talmudic hosts.

Ratzinger/Benedict has gone into two mosques (and delivered an address outside of a third in Jordan, which he called a "jewel" and a "splendid" place of "worship"), taking off his shoes on both occasions and once turning in the direction of Mecca and assuming the Mohammedan "prayer" position.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ would have done none of those things. Each of those things are hideous in His sight. No one can do those things and remain a member of the Catholic Church in good standing, no less hold ecclesiastical office within her ranks legitimately.

While lots of Catholics are concerned--and justifiably so--about the honorary doctorate being given to the pro-abort statist President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, by the University of Notre Dame du Lac in Notre Dame, Indiana, two days from now, that is, on Sunday, May 17, 2009, the violations against the First Commandment being committed by a putative "Roman Pontiff" are more heinous, more grave, more evil in the sight of God, Who hates false religions and wants them eradicated from the face of this earth as Catholics seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of their adherents to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order. Who is going to march on the Vatican with their Rosaries held high to protest these outrages against God? Who is even going to speak out against them?

Fifth, Ratzinger/Benedict embraces concilairism's definition of "religious liberty" as he praises the nonexistent ability of false religions to "contribute" to the "betterment" of nations and the world. Condemned by Pope Pius VI, Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791, Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right, Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, by Pope Pius IX in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, and by Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, and Libertas, June 20, 1888. He did so yesterday, May 14, 2009, in Nazareth when meeting with representatives of "other religions" in an Auditorium that is part of the Shrine of the Annunciation there:

At the heart of all religious traditions is the conviction that peace itself is a gift from God, yet it cannot be achieved without human endeavor. Lasting peace flows from the recognition that the world is ultimately not our own, but rather the horizon within which we are invited to participate in God’s love and cooperate in guiding the world and history under his inspiration. We cannot do whatever we please with the world; rather, we are called to conform our choices to the subtle yet nonetheless perceptible laws inscribed by the Creator upon the universe and pattern our actions after the divine goodness that pervades the created realm.

Galilee, a land known for its religious and ethnic diversity, is home to a people who know well the efforts required to live in harmonious coexistence. Our different religious traditions have a powerful potential to promote a culture of peace, especially through teaching and preaching the deeper spiritual values of our common humanity. By molding the hearts of the young, we mold the future of humanity itself. Christians readily join Jews, Muslims, Druze, and people of other religions in wishing to safeguard children from fanaticism and violence while preparing them to be builders of a better world.

Barack Hussein Obama himself could have uttered those words. The text of the honorary degree to be given to this enemy of Christ the King and thus of all social order could be used to describe the work of another enemy of the Social Reign of Christ the King and thus of all social order, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who dares to praise the ability of "religions" to promote peace, which is the byproduct of individual souls being at peace with God by means of having Sanctifying Grace residing habitually in their immortal souls.

Ratzinger/Benedict's respect for the ability of false religions" to contribute to a better world has been condemned repeatedly by the Catholic Church, including by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

This respect for false religions is the work of Antichrist. It has been a hallmark of the entirety of Joseph Ratzinger's priesthood. It has been on full display for the past even days in Jordan and Israel.

Sixth, Ratzinger/Benedict endorses the "separation of Church and State," a thesis called absolutely false by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, and rejects the obligation of the civil state to recognize the Catholic Church as its official religion and to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End, an obligation reiterated by pope after pope following the rise of the religiously indifferentist civil state of Modernity.

Seventh, Joseph Ratzinger has long rejected the official philosophy of the Catholic Church, the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas, in favor of the condemned precepts of the so-called "New Theology, the subject of an article, The Memories of a Destructive Mind: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Milestones, on a Society of Saint Pius X website that may well "disappear"--along with other "damaging" citations that will have to be removed as part of the conciliar process of "purification of memory"--once a formal "regularization" takes place. (See also: Attempting to Coerce Perjury.) This rejection of Scholasticism is, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, a cornerstone of Modernism and is a mockery of the decrees of numerous popes reaffirming the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas as the sure guarantee against error. (See Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism.)

Pope Leo XIII summarized the decrees of these popes as follows in Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879:

But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull 'In Ordine;' Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull 'Pretiosus,' and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows luster from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull 'Mirabilis' that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull 'Verbo Dei,' affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: 'It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same.' Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: 'is teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.'

The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence, and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the 'Summa' of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.

A last triumph was reserved for this incomparable man -- namely, to compel the homage, praise, and admiration of even the very enemies of the Catholic name. For it has come to light that there were not lacking among the leaders of heretical sects some who openly declared that, if the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could easily battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory, and abolish the Church. A vain hope, indeed, but no vain testimony. (Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879.)

Ninth, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has dared to disparage Pope Pius IX's The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864, by referring to the texts the "Second" Vatican Council's Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae as part of a "countersyllabus of errors:"

Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789 (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 382.)

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1864, explained that there can be no "reconciliation" between the Church and the maxims of the revolutions of Modernity:

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

Tenth, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has used the cover provided him by the "non-binding" work of the International Theological Commission and "pontifical" councils to undermine belief in Limbo, in the unicity of the Church, in her mission to seek to convert all men, including the Protestants and the Orthodox, with great urgency and to convince Catholics that we can "learn" from the "fruit" of "inter-religious dialogue. Such documents as The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised and the Balamand Statement and The Ravenna Document contain numerous defections from the Catholic Faith, each of which is believed whole-heartedly by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

Eleventh, it was Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger who personally insisted that a conciliar presbyter, Bruno Forte, be "consecrated" a "bishop" in Italy in 2004 even though, Forte, had written a book denying the fact of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Bodily Resurrection from the dead:

Another example of this alarming situation, which threatens to make the Pope’s disciplinary laxity seem strictly conservative by comparison, is the little-noticed story of how Bruno Forte, a priest of the Archdiocese of Naples, was suddenly made a bishop five months ago.

Forte, who last year was brought to the Vatican to preach a Lenten retreat to an already incapacitated Pope, is rumored to be Cardinal Ratzinger’s replacement as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. How this happened is anybody’s guess. The rumor has caused a great deal of consternation for one simple reason: Forte is a flaming neo-modernist. As noted in the Winter 2005 issue of The Latin Mass in a report by its Italian correspondent, Alessandro Zangrando, Forte was a pupil of none other than the infamous Cardinal Walter Kasper. (In yet another sign of things falling apart at the top, immediately after Kasper’s own elevation to the rank of cardinal he publicly declared to the press that the Old Covenant remains in force and is salvific for the Jews, and that Protestants are under no obligation to convert and become Catholics.)

Worse still, Zangrando, a respected journalist not given to reckless claims, relates that Forte’s 1994 essay Gesu di Nazaret, storia di Dio, Dio della storia (Jesus of Nazareth, history of God, God of history) reveals Forte as nothing less than “the standard-bearer of theories so radical as to the point of putting in doubt even the historicity of the resurrection of Christ. The empty tomb, he argues, is a legend tied into the Jewish-Christian ritual performed at the place of Jesus’ burial. It is a myth inherited by the Christians from Jesus’ early disciples. Therefore, the empty tomb, along with other details surrounding the resurrection, is nothing but a ‘proof’ made up by the community. In other words, Forte is trying to change the resurrection of Christ into a myth, into a kind of fairy tale that cannot be proven.”

Forte’s elevation to bishop was rather mysterious. Zangrando notes that Forte’s name did not appear in any list of possible candidates submitted to the Italian Nunciature, and even his ordinary, Cardinal Michele Giordano, Archbishop of Naples, “was reportedly against that appointment.” But, “in an apparent attempt at putting to rest a growing controversy” over Forte’s candidacy, he was personally consecrated a bishop by none other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the very man Forte will succeed as head of the CDF, according to the rumors. Yes, “our only friend in the Vatican” has struck again. More and more it becomes apparent that this man is perhaps the most industrious ecclesial termite of the post-conciliar epoch, tearing down even as he makes busy with the appearance of building up. The longer Ratzinger “guards” Catholic doctrine, the more porous the barriers that protect it become.

Indeed, as I have pointed out more than once on these pages, it was Ratzinger who wrote in 1987 (in the second edition of his Principles of Catholic Theology) that the “demolition of bastions” in the Church is “a long-overdue task.” The Church, he declared, “must relinquish many of the things that have hitherto spelled security for her and that she has taken for granted. She must demolish longstanding bastions and trust solely the shield of faith.” Now it seems that with the bastions all but demolished, even the shield of faith is about to clatter to the ground.

There is no doubt the Holy Ghost will save the Church from extinction and bring about her restoration. In the end, no other result is possible. Before this happens, however, the difference between extinction and non-extinction may come to be far smaller than even traditionalists might have supposed. On the other hand, the very next Pope could be another Saint Pius X, who will finally take arms against our enemies and impose immediate restorative measures we could scarcely have imagined.

Who knows which way it will go? All we can do is continue our loyal opposition, pray for the advent of a kingly, militant pope, and hope that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will soon be upon us. (Christopher A. Ferrara, Ratzinger Personally Consecrates Neo-Modernist Bishop; the "loyal opposition" position was handed by Father Anthony Cekada in Sedevacantism and Mr. Ferrara's Cardboard Pope. Anyone who thinks Ratzinger, the former "ecclesiastical termite" is a "restorer of the Faith" has to overlook a lot of blasphemy and sacrilege to maintain such a contention with a straight face.)

Those who want to believe that Ratzinger/Benedict is a "restorer" of the Faith must overlook these defections from the Faith as they pin their unjustified "hopes" on a "motu proprio" that is founded on false premises and is designed to neutralize the resistance from traditionally-minded Catholics yet attached to the conciliar structures by "liberating" the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition while at the same time stating categorically that the hideous Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service is the "ordinary form" of "one" Roman Rite. Traditionally-minded Catholics yet attached to the conciliar structures must overlook Ratzinger/Benedict's plainly-stated intentions to "broaden the vistas" of those who have yet to embrace conciliarism and the Novus Ordo with joy:

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and, with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

"Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. (LETTER ON REMISSION OF EXCOMMUNICATION LEFEBVRE BISHOPS)

Those who do not think that Ratzinger/Benedict is absolutely serious about "broadening the vistas" of those who have yet to embrace conciliarism and the joys of the hideous Novus Ordo service, those who are projecting into Ratzinger/Benedict's mind a sense of "restoration" that is not there, ought to remember that Pope Leo X, in essence, told the drunkard Martin Luther in 1518 to sober up. Perhaps this report from the Catholic News Service will help at least some traditionally-minded Catholics, including those in the Society of Saint Pius X, who are attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to "sober up:"

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Work on the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace was not so much a restoration as a restitution of the pope's prayer space, said the director of the Vatican Museums.

Containing the last two murals Michelangelo ever painted, the private papal chapel had been under scaffolding for more than five years; it was presented to reporters June 30.

Pope Benedict XVI was scheduled to inaugurate the chapel July 4 with an evening prayer service in the presence of four dozen members of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums. The patrons -- laypeople from the United States, England and Ireland -- fully covered the almost $4.6 million it took to clean and restore the chapel's artwork, refurnish it and install a sophisticated new LED lighting system.

The chapel -- named after Pope Paul III, who commissioned its construction in 1537 -- has side walls that feature Michelangelo's paintings of the crucifixion of St. Peter and the conversion of St. Paul.

Access to the chapel is from the "Sala Regia," the "royal room" where popes once met visiting Catholic kings and queens.

While the room's murals focus on the church's influence and power in the temporal world, "as soon as you cross the threshold (into the Pauline Chapel), you pass into the church that lives in the dimension of eternity," said Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums.

Traditionally the private chapel has been reserved for the pope's celebration of early morning Mass with special guests and for the adoration of the Eucharist during the day by people who work in the Apostolic Palace.

"The body of Christ is at the center, and it is surrounded by the story of the princes of the Apostles": St. Peter, to whom the popes trace their spiritual responsibility for the church, and St. Paul, from whom they inherit the mission of preaching the Gospel to all peoples and preserving the unity of Christ's disciples, Paolucci said.

Michelangelo began work on the two murals in 1542 after he had finished "The Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel. He completed his contribution to the Pauline Chapel in 1550 at the age of 75.

"It is a kind of spiritual testament marked by a vast sadness and deep pessimism," Paolucci said. "One has the impression that the mystery of grace offered to an unworthy humanity causes anguish for the soul of the artist, a Christian, who lived through and witnessed the religious crisis of his era, which was divided and lacerated by the Reformation."

The chapel walls feature other episodes from the lives of the two apostles by Lorenzo Sabbatini and Federico Zuccari, Italians who began their work on the chapel about 25 years after Michelangelo finished his.

Restoration of the art was not the only concern of those who worked on the chapel over the past five years, said Arnold Nesselrath, the Vatican Museums official who oversaw the effort.

"The Pauline Chapel is still one of the three papal chapels in the Apostolic Palace and has a traditional liturgical function, so we had to return the space intact" without making modifications for purely educational or documentary purpose, he said.

Paolucci told reporters that almost every pope who has served the church in the last four centuries made some kind of modification to the Pauline Chapel.

The modifications, he said, show just how personally connected each pope felt to the chapel, but they complicated the restoration work.

An international commission composed of 13 experts on Michelangelo or on the theory and practice of restoration was formed to advise the Vatican on how far to go not only in cleaning the works, but also in deciding which of the later additions to remove or keep.

In addition, U.S. Archbishop James Harvey, prefect of the papal household, and Msgr. Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, were involved in deciding what furnishings to use and where to place them.

Bishop Paolo De Nicolo, regent of the papal household, said that in the end, it was Pope Benedict who decided to remove the altar placed in the chapel by Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council.

Pope Benedict chose to restore the original marble altar, but not to place it completely against the wall where it stood for 400 years.

"The chapel is meant for eucharistic adoration, and if the altar were against the wall it would have been very difficult to reach the tabernacle," which is flush against the wall, Bishop De Nicolo said.

The removal of the table installed by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI is not a "restoration" of Tradition when one considers the simple fact that the original marble altar is being placed so as to make possible the continued offering of the Novus Ordo service facing the people. Mass facing "the people." This is only a "triumph" for the "tradition" of what purports to be the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass facing the people begun in the aftermath of the "Second" Vatican Council., a "tradition" that even a full-fledged member of the Liturgical Movement, the late Father Joseph Juungmann, S.J., called nothing other than a fable in his two volume series on the history of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, The Mass of the Rite Rite.

The late Michael Davies, writing a book review of essays written by the late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, explained that the originator of a liturgy facing the people was none other than the aforementioned German drunkard, Martin Luther:

The second essay, ‘The Sacrifice of the Mass— Since When?’, provides an invaluable exposition of sacrifice, of which very little is heard today, particularly in our so-called Catholic schools. At the beginning of the third essay, ‘Celebration Turned Towards the People’, we are told:

In the following pages it will be shown that there never was a custom in the Church of celebrating ‘turned towards the people’. The idea of priest and people facing one another during the Mass goes back without doubt to Martin Luther. (Production Line Liturgy.)

Moreover, the whole business of "circling" around an altar to incense it carries with it some striking similarities with how those engaged in direct worship of the adversary use incense in their dark rites. And since when has the placement of a tabernacle on altars in Catholic churches that are attached to walls ever been an impediment to Eucharistic adoration? Ratzinger's "restoration" of the Pauline Chapel reflects his own desire for there to be a "synthesis" between the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition that was promulgated by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1961 and 1962 and the Novus Ordo service that was promulgated by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI on April 3, 1969.

The redesigned Pauline Chapel reflects perfectly Ratzinger/Benedict's subjectivist view of the Faith and of the liturgy, a subjectivist view that was assessed by his own spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., in 2007 after the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, and by Italian journalist Sandro Magister in 2008:

"Neither the Missal of Pius V and John XXIII -- used by a small minority -- nor that of Paul VI -- used today with much spiritual fruit by the greatest majority -- will be the final 'law of prayer' of the Catholic Church." (Father Federico Lombardi, Zenit, July 15, 2007.)

From this point of view, then, the new prayer for the Jews in the liturgy in the ancient rite does not weaken, but postulates an enrichment of the meaning of the prayer in use in the modern rite. Exactly like in other cases, it is the modern rite that postulates an enriching evolution of the ancient rite. In a liturgy that is perennially alive, as the Catholic liturgy is, this is the meaning of the coexistence between the two rites, ancient and modern, as intended by Benedict XVI with the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum."

This is a coexistence that is not destined to endure, but to fuse in the future "in a single Roman rite once again," taking the best from both of these. This is what then-cardinal Ratzinger wrote in 2003 – revealing a deeply held conviction – in a letter to an erudite representative of Lefebvrist traditionalism, the German philologist Heinz-Lothar Barth. (Sandro Magister, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)

Any Catholic chapel or church that is designed to accommodate the evil that is the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service is a place of profanation, not a place of the true worship of God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church. Still believe that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is a "restorer" of Tradition?

Even more telling about the state of the conciliar revolution is the fact that the resignation of the conciliar "archbishop" of Olinda and Recife, Brazil,
Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, has been accepted by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. "Archbishop" Sobrinho reached the conciliar church's mandatory retirement age of seventy-five last year. As is somewhat customary, however, Sobrinho was permitted to continue in his position past the time when he is required to submit his letter of mandatory resignation. The late John "Cardinal" O'Connor, for example, was permitted to serve as the conciliar "archbishop" of New York until his death on May 3, 2000, sixty-three and one-half months after he turned seventy-five years of age on January 15, 1995.

"Archbishop" Sobrinho, however, was forced out only a year after the mandatory retirement age, an event that might have more than a little bit to do with the role that he played in justly condemning the baby-killers who murdered the preborn child of a nine-year old Brazilian girl who had the victim of an assault (see
So Long to the Fifth Commandment):

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of the Brazilian archbishop at the center of a controversy over excommunications related to the case of an abortion performed on a 9-year-old [assault] victim.

The pope accepted the resignation of Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife July 1, the day after the archbishop's 76th birthday. Under canon law, bishops must submit their resignations when they turn 75.

At the same time, 62-year-old Bishop Fernando Saburido of Sobral, Brazil, was named as his replacement. With the appointment, he automatically becomes an archbishop.

In early March doctors at a hospital in Recife performed an abortion on the girl, who was pregnant with twins, weighed a little more than 66 pounds and reportedly had been [assaulted] repeatedly by her stepfather from the time she was 6 years old. Abortion in Brazil is illegal except in cases of [assault] or if the mother's life is in danger.

Interviewed by the media after the abortion, Archbishop Sobrinho noted that abortion always was a sin and that, according to canon law, anyone participating in the abortion -- including the girl's mother and her doctors -- would automatically incur excommunication.

He told a newspaper that while it was true the child ran health risks if she continued the pregnancy, "the end does not justify the means. The good aim of saving her life cannot justify the killing of two other lives."

In the midst of expressions of outrage from around the world over what appeared to be a lack of pastoral concern and compassion for the girl, the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life said the church's first reaction should have been to minister to the girl.

The girl "should have been defended, hugged and held tenderly to help her feel that we were all on her side," said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the academy.

This is what I wrote shortly after "Archbishop" Rino Fisichella criticized the courageous words and actions of "Archbishop" Sobrinho:

Indeed, we have seen the scandals in recent months caused by the conciliar "bishops" of Colorado, who opposed a ballot initiative to declare the preborn child a person, and that caused by the conciliar "bishops" of North Dakota, who have just this month opposed a personhood bill for the preborn that had been introduced into the North Dakota State Legislature. Similar legislative measures have been thwarted by the conciliar "bishops" in Georgia and Montana Those who support the soul-killing lies of conciliarism become in all too many instances the enablers of the killing of the innocent preborn under cover of law. And, of course, we have the enduring scandal of the likes of the support given to fully pro-abortion politicians, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, among the ranks of "ultra-progressive" "bishops" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the United States of America.

These scandals are made bad enough in and of themselves. What is worse, however, is that we have seen in recent weeks, however, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's hand-picked President of the "Pontifical" Academy for Life, "Archbishop" Rino Fisichella, has written in L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, that a conciliar "archbishop" in Recife, Brazil, "Archbishop" Cardoso Sobrinho, was wrong to have excommunicated doctors who performed an abortion on a nine year-old girl who was carrying twins as a result of an act of violence against her by a relative, stating that the abortions were necessary to "save" the life of the nine year-old girl, a contention that is both medically untrue and morally false: it is never "necessary" to directly, intentionally kill one human being to save the life of another. (So Long to the Fifth Commandment; see also
The Holy See Abandons its Pro-Life Position. Criticized by many pro-life leaders in the conciliar structures, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., had to issue a "clarification" as to what was considered to be a "therapeutic" abortion, indicating that he, Lombardi, did not understand or accept the fact that there is no such thing as a "therapeutic" abortion.)

There might be no connection at all between the events of three months ago and the acceptance of "Archbishop" Sobrinho's resignation by Ratzinger/Benedict. Then again, there might be a connection. No one in the conciliar Vatican is talking about forcing early resignations out of Roger Mahony or George Niederauer or Tod Brown or Howard Hubbard, for instance. They can stay in power and enable pro-aborts and those committed to the promotion of perversity under cover of the civil law as a "civil right" without any threat to their power in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. "Archbishop" Sobrinho's resignation was accepted willingly just months after he said all of the correct things about the crime of killing the nine year-old girl's twin babies. Just another example of a "restoration" of Tradition, I suppose.

As I wrote in "Retiring Types" in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos twelve years ago, the imposition by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI of a mandatory retirement age on bishops and priests was designed to force "conservatives" out of their chancery offices or parishes so that thorough-going revolutionaries would be able to take their places as a means of advancing the doctrinal and liturgical revolutions wrought by conciliarism. Although some bishops and priests retired for reasons of health in the years before the "Second" Vatican Council, most served until they died. Montini/Paul VI used the revolutionary novelty of a mandatory retirement age, an invention concocted by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the 1870s to create a entire class of citizens dependent upon the state for their sustenance, to remove "obstacles" to the furtherance of the conciliar revolution, which is why Montini/Paul VI forbade cardinals over the age of eighty to vote in consistories to select successive antipopes of the conciliar church. The revolutionaries did not want then--and they do now want today--anyone to retard their work, a work reflected perfectly in the redesign of the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace.

A true restoration of the Church Militant on earth will occur only when Our Lady's Fatima Message is fulfilled and as the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart is made manifest. Some might ask how this can occur when there is no true pope and no prospect of one being found anytime soon. Fair enough. All I know is that God is faithful to His promises. He has sent His Most Blessed Mother to us to assure us that her Immaculate Heart will indeed triumph in the end. It is enough for me to know that this is so.

I am content to try, as a consecrated slave of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through His Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, to make reparation for my sins and those of the whole world, first by assisting at the Mass of the ages offered at the hands of true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism at all and second by praying as many Rosaries each day as my state-in-life permits. I am content to leave the rest in the hands of Our Lady as she gives the fruit of whatever merit I might earn each day to God for His greater honor and glory and for the good of Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

I have come to learn that heretics cannot be popes, that true popes cannot give us defective liturgies that offend God or doctrines that do not clearly communicate the truths of the Faith or pronouncements that contain "viruses" or "time bombs" within them (see True Popes Never Need to "Convert" to the Faith). Those yet attached to the conciliar structures cannot point to a single, solitary "cardinal" of voting age in the counterfeit church who rejects conciliarism en toto (the new ecclesiology, false ecumenism, inter-religious prayer services and inter-religious dialogue, the Novus Ordo, religious liberty, separation of Church and State) and who believes in a restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King. Far from being a "restorer" of Tradition, Ratzinger/Benedict has sought to further institutionalize the conciliar revolution. To think that his "successor" in the conciliar structures will not be as committed as he has been to the conciliar revolution is simply delusional.

As we keep watch at the tomb during this time of the Church Militant's burial following her Passion and Death and prior to her Resurrection, we keep close to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, never despairing at all no matter what we suffer and never losing heart even though there are challenges that may crop up now and again even in the catacombs where the Faith is being protected by true bishops and true priests. None of us is perfect. We should not expect to find perfection in the catacombs during this time of apostasy and betrayal. We must keep our hands on the plough as we week to plant a few seeds when the conciliarists will be defeated or converted and the lips of all Catholics, consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, will exclaim: